Whitecaps have self-belief and talent: now it’s time for results

Head coach Martin Rennie has set new milestones for his team to surpass this season in MLS play.Photo by
Rainier Ehrhardt

There were no snakes or spinning wheels. Martin Rennie stopped short of full-on hypnosis in his first preseason with the Vancouver Whitecaps. But this time last year was all about getting inside his players’ heads.

Positive self-talk. Visualization. Goal setting. Those were the dominant themes of daily classroom sessions heading into the 2012 season.

“I just felt like, every day, I was trying to almost brainwash them,” said Rennie, a 37-year-old Scot.

“’You’re good players. You’re good players. You’re good players.’

“’We’re going to be a good team. We’re going to be a good team.’”

As Rennie enters his second regular season as coach of the Caps, there’s been a marked shift in preparation, from the mental to the tactical.

Rennie will always make time for the former, but going from last place to a playoff berth in 2012 has afforded him more time to focus on the latter.

“The difference is, this year the players do believe that we can win and they can be successful,” he said.

STRATEGY TRUMPS PSYCHOLOGY

Ahead of Saturday’s season-opener at home to Toronto, classroom sessions have been more about systems and strategy than psychology.

Players have watched hours of game film of a team, or teams, Rennie is trying to model his after.

He won’t say which ones, but they’ll be playing a 4-2-3-1 formation, which Rennie has shifted to this season. The system, he says, fits the roster.

That’s something that couldn’t be said in the second half of last season, when it often felt like summer signings Barry Robson and Kenny Miller were being shoehorned in as best as possible.

“With our pace in the wide areas, we could exploit teams [this year],” Rennie said. “We’ve got Kekuta [Manneh] and [Erik] Hurtado, who can really get at people.

“It was also about trying to find the right fit for Camilo and Kenny and [Daigo] Kobayashi, because they can play in those [attacking midfield] roles.

“We need to find ways for Darren Mattocks to get in behind, and we’ve got a lot of central midfielders who can go box-to-box.

“All that pace opens up a lot more space for others to drop off and get the ball and play people in. So it gives us a different balance to what we had.”

INJECTION OF PACE

Manneh, the fourth-overall pick, and Hurtado, the fifth pick, look ready to compete for starts. Over shorter distances, they might both be faster than Mattocks, which is saying something.

The Caps scored just 35 goals last season, third-worst in MLS. Rennie believes the injection of pace, the addition of Kobayashi, and a full preseason for Miller will go a long way to improving that.

Kobayashi was a relatively quiet signing, but he should provide so much of what the squad was missing last year — creativity and a calming presence.

Defensively, the foundation remains, bolstered by the addition of English Premier League veteran Nigel Reo-Coker, who signed a week ago.

“He’ll bring drive and leadership to the group,” Rennie said recently, “and that’s one of things this squad needs added to it.”

YOUNGER SQUAD

There’s a knock-on effect of Reo-Coker’s signing, too: Alain Rochat, the smooth Swiss-Canadian, could return to left-back after ending last season in midfield.

Rennie also wanted to assemble a more athletic squad and get the average age down.

Based on a Province prediction of the 20 players who’ll see significant minutes this season, compared to last year’s top 20 in minutes, the Caps will be almost 1.5 years younger, on average.

“It was also about finding players who understand the way we want to do things as a group,” Rennie said. “So, not just good players, but they buy into the overall philosophy: how we talk to one another, what their role is on the team.

“Hopefully, we can have a lot more continuity.”

NO MORE MID-SEASON MOVES

The chopping and changing last summer left fans befuddled after a hot start. It also discouraged management from further mid-season moves.

Rennie and the Caps, in part, paid for raising expectations so quickly. They opened the season 5-2-2 and were still 10-7-7 in early August.

They collapsed down the stretch, going 1-6-3, and needed out-of-town help to remain ahead of Dallas for the final playoff spot.

A strong playoff performance in L.A. — a 2-1 loss to the eventual MLS Cup champions — capped the season on a promising note.

EXPECTATIONS FOR 2013

Rennie pointed out the importance of that achievement and laid out his expectations for 2013.

“To go from a bad team to a good team you have to reach certain milestones,” he said. “We were almost in the playoffs with weeks to go. That was a mental barrier.

“So, we’ve done that and now there’s others we have to break through. Like winning Cascadia Cup games (the Caps are 0-6-4 against Seattle and Portland in MLS), beating L.A. Galaxy (they’re 0-5-1 against L.A.) and winning Canadian Cups (they’re 0-for-5).

“Those are the next things that, once you’ve done them, you believe you’re a team that’s going to consistently do that.

“This season, we need to start seeing that improvement and that belief.”

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